Read Online Baby Needs a New Pair of Shoes by Lauren Baratz-Logsted - Free Book Online

no. I’m sure she won’t like—”
    â€œCome on.” Rivera yanked on my arm.
    I was right: Hillary didn’t like it…At All.
    â€œThose are my New Year’s Eve shoes!” she shrieked, towel still wrapped around her head, another around her body, when she glimpsed my twinkle toes five minutes later.
    â€œI know,” I said.
    They were her New Year’s Eve shoes, the same shoes she’d worn every New Year’s Eve for as long as I’d known her. Shaped like a simple high-heeled pump, they were covered in glittery silver, kind of like Dorothy’s red slippers, only a different color and without the bow but with a big heel. Hillary claimed they were good luck and that wearing them on that one night, and only that one night, ensured her a great year ahead.
    â€œYou look great in those towels.” Rivera winked at her.
    â€œShut up,” Hillary said. “My shoes! But wait a second. Your feet are much smaller than mine.”
    This was true.
    Extracting one foot from one shoe—really, that expensive pedi was wasted inside a closed-toe shoe—I revealed Rivera’s handiwork: wadded tissue paper. Honestly, it was hard to feel like a glam winner when there was Kleenex cuddling my piggies before going to market.
    â€œBut it’s such a good cause, Hillary Clinton,” Rivera said sweetly, enunciating each word of my roommate’s name silkily as though she were trying to sell rich cordovan leather. “And it’s not like it’s as bad as it could be, like if her feet were bigger than yours and there was a danger she might stretch them out. And you really do look great in those towels.”
    â€œOhh… what…ever, ” Hillary conceded with poor grace, going off to dry her hair.

    â€œWhere the hell did you get that thing?” I shouted down to Conchita from the balcony of the South Park condo.
    A minute before, a white stretch limo had pulled into the parking lot and Conchita had emerged from the driver’s seat, opening one of the passenger doors from which emerged Elizabeth Hepburn. Seeing the four of us out on the balcony, Elizabeth Hepburn did a little red-carpet curtsy.
    Conchita smiled up at me, shielding her eyes against the blaze of sun going down behind us. “You don’t want to know, chica. ”
    â€œReady to roll?” Elizabeth Hepburn asked. “You know, John Wayne used to always say that to me. Count Basie, too, come to think of it.”
    â€œBut wait a second,” I said. “Don’t you all need to get dressed?”
    I looked at the five of them. It wasn’t that they were shabbily dressed. Indeed, they all looked better than I looked most days, but they were still all relatively casual, in summer slacks, light blouses and sandals. Really, I was the only one who looked like she might be going out on a Saturday night to a casino that had nightclubs in it.
    â€œOh, no,” Elizabeth Hepburn said softly. “This is your big night.”

7
    F oxwoods Casino was a fair drive from where we’d started, but when we walked into the casino en masse it felt as though no more time had passed than the length it would take for a reader to turn the page.
    Maybe it was that Conchita drove like a maniac. Or maybe it was the single drink I’d allowed myself from the minibar—“Never get drunk while you’re playing—” my dad’s words rang in my brain “—only losers get drunk at the table”—the champagne going down like silk bubbles as I listened to the Brazilian music Conchita was blaring on the stereo.
    â€œHey.” Hillary smiled at me lazily over the top of her own flute of champagne. “You’re drinking something with alcohol in it and it’s not even Jake’s Fault.”
    For a moment, I felt a frisson of anxiety. I was starting to get hungry and I wondered if they had any Michael Angelo’s Four Cheese Lasagna kicking